Destination Soccer Chattanooga: Part 4 - High School

June 20, 2019 by Dan Vaughn

Chattanooga FC is headed into their eleventh season of action. I have spent most of my life about thirty minutes from Chattanooga and CFC was the team to get me into grassroots soccer. I got the chance a few months back to talk to some of the most influential people in Chattanooga’s vast soccer ecosystem. These are the stories of what I consider one of if not the best soccer destinations in the United States.

The Chattanooga area is, in my opinion, easily the best in the nation for high school soccer. In Chattanooga itself, they have Baylor, McCallie, and Boyd Buchanan, three of the top private schools for soccer in the state of Tennessee.

Head a little further south and you get to Whitfield County, Georgia, my hometown and, once again in my opinion, the top high school soccer in the entire nation. In the last seven years, a Georgia boy’s soccer state champion came out of the county. The past three years have each had a champion (Southeast Whitfield in 2017, Northwest Whitfield in 2018, and Dalton in 2019).

Little side note here. If you have a couple of hours to spare at some point, sit down and watch that Northwest Whitfield title game from 2018. It was easily the best match I’ve ever seen in person and one of if not the best I’ve ever seen in general.

Dalton celebrates the 2019 6A Championship. Photo courtesy of Daily Citizen-News.

This past season, Dalton, the powerhouse of north Georgia soccer, returned to the form they had from 2013-2015. During that time period, they won three straight state titles and sixty-three games with just one draw and no losses. This season, they got back into that form with a 23-0 season and finished #1 in the AP’s Super 25 National Rankings.

Once you leave that super talented region and head back into Chattanooga, there is not much of a drop-off if any. McCallie won the state title this season. In 2018, McCallie and Baylor played each other in the State Championship game. At least one of the two schools has appeared in six of the ten state title games since 2010. The other two big schools in the area, Chattanooga Christian and Boy Buchanan, played each other in the 2010 State Championship game. Chattanooga Christian would come up short that year, but would win state in 2011.

Red Wolves General Manager Sean McDaniel gave a great reason as to why the area is so good when he said, “There’s so much talent, so many pathways. I think there’s a lot of potential here.” But that isn’t all there is. Talking to coaches at the high school level, a lot of them point to the impact of Chattanooga FC.

“We’ve had a big impact from the CFC Academy,” says Baylor’s boy’s soccer coach Curtis Blair, “Not just us here at Baylor, but all over Chattanooga is reaping the rewards. They’ve just raised the level of play, which is really really good. They brought the brand and it’s gotta be something higher here.”

“When Chattanooga FC came they really galvanized the community around soccer,” says McCallie’s boy’s soccer coach Chris Cushenbery, “They were able to pull together more of the clubs. It has really benefited our kids.” “By bringing the community together, they also brought the clubs together and our kids are really the beneficiaries of a better club system.”

The role of CFC in the development of local soccer cannot be underrated. Image courtesy of CFC.

“It changed the culture,” says Boyd Buchanan’s boy’s coach Dustin Walker, “Chattanooga has always had a love for soccer, but CFC organized it and got kids playing and brought in awesome coaches and just raised the high school game even more.”

The coaches in the area are another big reason for the quality of play in the area. They are some of the best people you could meet and they love what they do. “Those are my guys,” says Walker, “I love the connections I make with my players and there’s a little bit of sadness when the season ends because I don’t get to see my guys anymore.”

“My purpose in life is to make an impact in the life of these boys, and I think soccer provides an awesome opportunity to do that,” says Cushenbery. Cushenbery’s story is amazing and probably deserves it’s own article. He ran a construction company, but realized that wasn’t what he wanted to do, so he sold the company and went to coach soccer voluntarily at McCallie. He would eventually get a gig at Girls Preparatory School in Chattanooga before returning to McCallie as the head coach of the boy’s soccer team.

Honestly, sitting down and talking to these coaches just showed the reason these teams are so good. The coaches care about character as much as quality on the field. I could probably write full feature pieces on each coach and the stories they tell (which really would be a pretty good read and I might consider doing that). These guys really care about what they do and are proud of the fact that they’ve been a part of building the Chattanooga area into the best area for high school soccer in the country.

I’ll leave you with the funniest thing about the whole interview process with the coaches. I asked both Baylor and McCallie’s coaches who the toughest team they play each season is. Mind you, these interviews were a few months following a season where the two teams played each other and went to penalties in the State Championship game. Neither coach would name their bitter cross-town rival as their toughest yearly opponent, despite playing in a tight game to decide state champion.

- Aarik Long

For the rest of the Destination Soccer: Chattanooga, check out the full series!

Destination Soccer Chattanooga: Part 3 - CFC Academy

June 19, 2019 by Dan Vaughn

Chattanooga’s off-the-field impact is much, much more vast than their impact on the field. From their academies to their charity work, the club has had such a vast impact on the city and the surrounding areas.

“The academies in the area were fractured,” said Chattanooga FC general manager Sheldon Grizzle. “The best players were split up and other players were driving to Atlanta, Knoxville, Nashville.” “Chattanooga just wasn’t punching its weight,” adds club president Tim Kelly. The idea of forming a single elite academy in the area was a huge undertaking at the time, but now they are the best academy in the area. It all started back in 2012 when the club held a summit with thirty of the top youth clubs from the city to discuss how to improve the youth game. The result was a more unified system that over the years has seen more and more clubs join.

A lot of the players on the men’s and women’s team coach in the academy. “Some of them are our best coaches,” says Grizzle. The quality coaching and the CFC name has helped grow the number of kids playing elite soccer in Chattanooga from a few hundred to over a thousand just in CFC’s academy. “They’ve got one of the most impressive youth clubs in Tennessee, for sure, in terms of curriculum and coaching,” said Justin Haskell, a coach in the CFC Academy, “There are some really, really good and really, really experienced coaches here… I love the setup here and the curriculum and it’s just a really cohesive vision for how the kids should play. Every team in the academy is being taught play out of the back, keep the ball on the ground, possession, high pressing, quick counter-attacking, composure under pressure.”

Besides giving the kids somewhere to play and grow their abilities, the academy offers college prep to help athletes take that next step and get into a college. They do this through showing their players how to get recruited. They also hosted their first ever College ID camp this past summer with college soccer coaches from all over the Southeast attending. This academy’s 2019 class has thirty-four college commitments.

What they’ve done with the academy is phenomenal and should be applauded, but personally, I don’t think it even begins to match up to what they’ve done through the CFC Foundation. The Foundation is comprised of two major programs, the Chattanooga Sports Ministries and Operation Get Active. OGA works with elementary schools, middle schools, rec centers, and adults and children with disabilities. It all started with the elementary schools and branched out from there. Fun fact: OGA is also the first North American program to receive funding through the VW Workers Foundation.

“We are a health initiative trying to encourage kids to get more active through the game of soccer. We do this three times a year in the spring, summer, and fall,” says OGA Director Peter Woolcock. It’s a ten week long program that is in twenty elementary schools and three middle schools. They practice twice a week after school. Halfway through the program they have a tournament at Finley Stadium and then at the end they have another tournament for championships. “I think the Foundation is hugely important,” said Woolcock, “There’s still a big barrier to participation in soccer in this country. It’s not cheap. I think what we do well is have a really very affordable program that kids can access soccer, be part of a team, represent their school, have a jersey, and really introduce them to the game of soccer.”

OGA isn’t just great for the kids. Seeing the kids out there is so impactful for the adults. “It’s really awesome to see the kids score a goal and celebrate,” says Woolcock. “It would be awesome to see a kid that plays does Operation Get Active play for Chattanooga Football Club."

On top of OGA, the CFC Foundation also has the Chattanooga Sports Ministries. Their mission is to “impact urban youth in Chattanooga at the intersection of faith and athletic engagement.” Like OGA, they have soccer leagues going on throughout the year, but they don’t work directly with schools, but focus more on developing character through the sport rather than introducing kids to the sport to improve fitness.

The CFC Foundation also works closely with the Highland Park Commons. It’s a group of three futsal fields that have been built in the middle of one of Chattanooga’s most diverse neighborhoods. There’s often pickup games, and it is the host of the Chattanooga Football League.

What the club has accomplished off the field is almost more impressive than the things they’ve done on the field. The lives they’ve impacted and kids they’ve helped are a testament to how much this club cares about the community.

Even though these are ran by Chattanooga FC, they are still charities. If you would like to donate to the CFC Foundation, you can click here. If you would like to donate to the Chattanooga Sports Ministries specifically, you can click here. If you would like to donate to Operation Get Active specifically, you can click here.

- Aarik Long

For the rest of this series on Chattanooga Soccer, go here.

Destination Soccer Chattanooga: Part 2 - Red Wolves

June 18, 2019 by Dan Vaughn

Not sure if this helps or hurts. Image courtesy of Red Wolves Twitter.

Oh, boy. This has been quite the story since everything started up. On August 1st, 2018, it was announced that the USL had granted Chattanooga a team for the newly created USL League One. Not longer afterwards, former Chattanooga FC General Manager Sean McDaniel was announced as the new general manager for the Red Wolves.

“I think Chattanooga is ready for pro soccer,” says McDaniel, “I don’t think it’s something Chattanooga would have been capable for ten year ago. I think year-round soccer is something the area is ready for and I’m glad the opportunity arose.”

However, there has been a lot of backlash on social media to the announcement of the team. The team has been backed by Bob Martino, a real estate developer from Utah, which most Chattahooligans are not a fan of. They are viewed as a team that is coming in to simply try to take over a market that has already seen great grassroots success and trying to pour money in to win over the market. “Alexi Lalas says ‘Let the market decide,” says CFC’s Tim Kelly, “But that only works if someone doesn’t have their thumb on the scale.” Kelly went on to say “I hope they fail, but if they don’t, we’ll do our best to put a better product on the field.”

Chattanooga FC also claims that the Red Wolves made them better “That rivalry makes Chattanooga more of a soccer city overall,” Kelly said, “I learned a long time ago to not worry about things we can’t control. We’re gonna fight as hard as we can for the club and we’re 100% sure that we’re wearing the white hats.” “This new thing hones our focus,” says CFC’s Sheldon Grizzle, “It won’t distract us.”

Although there has been a ton of backlash throughout lower league Twitter, the casual fans in Chattanooga have been getting behind the new team already. “We’re surprised by the support… in a good way!” McDaniel also says that he doesn’t let the negativity get to them. “Anytime I lose focus on the Red Wolves, it’s a distraction to what we are trying to do here,” says McDaniel, “My focus here is on the Red Wolves and it’s on building a professional organization. We’re building a stadium. There’s plenty more to be concerned about. That’s really where our whole focus is.”

The team isn’t short on resources either as owner Bob Martino has helped throw resources in and bring players from around the globe to Chattanooga. The club has players from England, Jamaica, Argentina, Albania, Brazil, Ireland, Spain, Libya, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Canada, and, of course, the United States.

“I’m so proud to say the team we’ve built internally in the office and our coaching staff is spectacular,” says McDaniel, “We couldn’t have found the right teammates without them, and that’s a credit to Bob Martino. His vision and his desire to make this spectacular would never have happened if he didn’t have the investment and the desire to do so.”

The team is building a stadium, like McDaniel mentioned, but for this first season, they are playing at Chattanooga Christian School’s field. They’ve laid out plans that look absolutely phenomenal. Locker rooms for the men’s, women’s, and academy teams, therapy rooms, weight rooms, film study, and a media room are all in the plans for their new soccer facility.

The club currently has two USL League Two teams, as well. The Park City Red Wolves play in Martino’s home of Park City, Utah. Their other League Two squad is much closer to home, playing in my hometown of Dalton, GA. The Dalton Red Wolves play in one of the best areas for high school soccer in the whole nation and have a few players actually from the area.

So far, in the inaugural season for the Red Wolves, they sit relatively low on the League One table, but there’s still time to turn the season around, as the season runs until the beginning of October. A big key will be winning on the road. At the point of writing this, the team has not won a game on the the road (editor’s note: Red Wolves won on the road against Richmond on 6/15). They lost four and drew once in their five matches away from home. There is always room to grow, however, and seeing the team gel could help them get something going.

- Aarik Long